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After lifting her hand to kiss each knuckle, I place a soft kiss into the middle of her palm. “I’d never met a female before. I fell for you and everything went so fast. It wasn’t at all like I’d imagined when I allowed myself to dream about falling in love.”
Her hazel eyes, luminous in the growing dusk, search my face, wanting more of an explanation.
“Can it be love, Cally? So quickly?”
She lifts out of her seat so she can lean across the table and reach close enough to cup my cheeks in her palms. “I don’t know what it’s like in your skin, Sylas. All I can tell you is that I’ve never felt anything like this before. Never felt this depth of affection. When I thought they might have hurt you, I almost lost my mind. So maybe it’s not love, but the falling part is accurate.”
“It feels that way in my skin, too. So I’m glad we’re on the same page. But I’m wondering if, even though what we shared in bed last night was… wonderful…” I pause, hoping the heat of my gaze communicates just how wonderful it was. “Could we slow things down? Get to know each other better? Settle into the house together and play with Totzilla and watch stupid TV shows and let me learn a thousand things about you before we have more sex?”
We’re so different from each other. I’ll never know what it was like to have a family or go to high school or prom or even some everyday thing she’s done a thousand times like order food in a restaurant.
I doubt a woman who's visited every state in the union and is drop-dead gorgeous would be cool with moving in together without coupling tonight.
“What about your rut?”
“No bugling today. My urges aren’t gone, but they’re manageable.” I chuckle and shrug. “Besides, I’ve always got the bathroom… and my hand.”
“I think I’d like that, Sylas. To take it slow. In fact…” She pauses and pooches out her lips, deep in thought. “I think I’d prefer it. Let’s continue our upside-down courtship. We’ll go from hot and heavy to moving in together, to a kind of… Amish romance—perhaps with a bundling bed, and then we’ll progress to…” Her eyes twinkle and she can barely contain the glowing expression on her face that screams of her immense happiness. “Perhaps we’ll go from that to something I never had the balls to even wish for.”
Something powerful and big and wide and deep unfurls deep in my belly. The words “home” and “mine” and “this is more than you hoped for” circle my mind even as some other crazy, happy, optimistic part of me whispers, “You deserve this, Sylas. No one deserves this more than you.”
I lean toward her, capturing her luscious scent in my nostrils, and cup my palm on her nape to ensure she’s not going anywhere. Her eyes close and the smile tugging at the corner of her lips is the only indication that I’ve made contact.
I inch closer in this uncomfortable posture as, across the tabletop, our mouths hover less than an inch apart. It’s as though we’re being pulled by some unseen force that can’t bear for us to be disconnected. After pressing my lips to hers, fire and ice and flames and passion overtake me, building inside me until I feel as though my whole body is alight with need and desire.
My heart pounds against my ribs when I hold her tight and explore her mouth with my tongue, drinking in her sweet taste. A pleasant shiver runs down my spine from the top of my head to the bottom of my hooves before settling low in my gut, leaving me groaning for more, almost dazed, moving on impulse.
Her kiss deepens with fierce intensity. Our tongues dance a slow, sensual waltz as we grow lost in pleasure. Every swipe of her tongue sends electricity zinging down my spine, making me shudder with delight. Heat pools in the pit of my stomach until it bursts into a searing blaze, spreading through every limb until it threatens to consume me, hotter than wildfire.
We take a break to breathe and gaze into each other’s eyes. How can the moment be so serious and feel lighter than air at the same time?
I stalk around the table, lift her into my arms, and almost tell her I’m not falling in love—I’m already there. But it’s too soon. Saying those words before I really know who this woman is, down to her very soul, would cheapen them.
Instead, I joke, “Did you just mention you had balls, Cally? I was trained to be observant, can see a bumblebee at a hundred yards. How did I not notice you had balls when my tongue was buried to the hilt last night in your delicious, molten channel?”
The look she gives me is so scorching, I wonder if we’ll be able to follow our plan to go slow even though that’s what we just agreed upon. Instead of acting on any of that, I ask, “What’s a bundling bed?”
“Some old-fashioned thing I read about where they would put a young man and woman into a bed when they were courting, but wrap them up so tightly they supposedly couldn’t do anything but talk. Sounds like craziness to me, right?”
“Yeah. Crazy.” And I just suggested we attempt the same insanity.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cally
One month later…
Over this last month, I’ve learned a lot about myself.
There were times in my life when I had growth spurts. When I was a kid, I went through physical ones. When I was older, there were several learning spurts where I taught myself photography, and later when I had to master everything there was to know about uploading my book to Amazon. I smile with affection at my younger self, whose fondest hope was that one person besides my proud parents would buy a copy.
But this last month has been an emotional growth spurt. And I have not managed it well. At all.
Right now, for instance. Several emotions are colliding and warring inside me, just as they have been since I crawled under that fence what seems like years ago.
The biggest emotion, the one I’m wearing on my face, is happiness.
We’ve erected a volleyball net across the middle of our dirt road Main Street and have chosen sides. It’s a mixture of splicers and human women.
